Recent comments in /f/askscience

aphilsphan t1_j9b8qyi wrote

Reply to comment by -Arke- in Why are we not acidic? by stronkreddituser

To add a bit, an amino acid can and will protonate itself. So the COOH (carboxylic acid) group “loses” its hydrogen as an ion (called a proton by chemists because that’s what it is). This results in the pronation of the amine (NH2) group. So you’ve got COO- on one end and NH3+ on the other. This is the “zwitterion” form.

Lots of chemistry is learning the vocabulary because the vocabulary makes it easier to communicate quickly.

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Ituzzip t1_j9b7pjl wrote

Reply to Is COVID unique in the way it affects different individuals in such different ways? by stupidrobots

On this list, rabies is the only disease that has the same end outcome for everyone who shows symptoms.

However it’s possible that some people could get exposed to rabies and don’t get an infection—that’s something that is difficult to measure, because you don’t know if viral particles entered the body and were cleared before establishing an infection, or if there just weren’t any particles that entered the body for some reason.

As for the others, the severity of the infection, and the ability for the immune system to clear it before it gets too advanced, will have a major role in affecting the outcome.

For most diseases, we’ve lived most of our lives assuming that somebody who never shows symptoms just didn’t get infected. With COVID we hear more about asymptomatic infections because of the emphasis on not exposing others, but most infections produce asymptomatic cases, and epidemiologists are aware of them. They just don’t get into the public consciousness because people aren’t too concerned when they have an infection that doesn’t affect their day to day life.

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